


since we've decided to be infinite (there's no ending and there's no fear)

by Dansmapropretete



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Kinda plotty, Plotty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3443510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dansmapropretete/pseuds/Dansmapropretete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry' and Iris have been happily dating for a few months when she asks him a question that he just can't answer. The result: ruin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	since we've decided to be infinite (there's no ending and there's no fear)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I have never seen an episode of Arrow in my entire life. I don't know what this is, but I tried. Please leave comments, good or bad and further fic requests if you all have any. Good luck reading this. I doubt it's coherent, but you know . . . I don't know.  
> Also, I was writing this while listening to "Family Portrait" by Rachel's. I really recommend reading it this way.

Barry Allen has rules. He has always had rules. He needs structure and good sense to rely on.

His rules include:

 

1\. Kids first. When saving a group of civilians, go for the children first.

2\. Our lips are sealed. No one else can know his secret outside of the small group of people within STAR labs.

3\. No other pursuits. Go after the Man in the Yellow suit. Any other cases in between are just busy work. He won't sleep, won't truly rest until he sees some punishment for the man that tore apart his family.

 

These rules he lives by. These rules he will not break. And he has to be extra careful because now he has Iris. _Iris._ Her name is a soft whistle in his mind.

/

On a night that Iris was spending at his place, her bare body stretched out next to him on his own bed, she was having trouble sleeping. Something was nagging at her and had been for several days now. Barry was, as she noticed for the first time, acting strangely. He was happy, this much she could glean, but he was always, always going. He couldn't slow down. She was worried, and she didn't fancy herself a worrier.

Iris rolled over and studied Barry's sleeping form in the dark.

"Barry," she hissed as she thumped his forehead.

Barry shot up quick. "What?" he mumbled, his eyes, squinting into the dark. "I'm up, I'm-- what's up?" he asked, turning to Iris, curled at his side, her brows furrowed in a tell of distress.

"Um," she started.

"Is somebody in the house?"

"No,"

"Then go back to bed," he insisted, slumping back into the mattress.

"I can't."

"Well I can." he said, rolling on stomach dramatically, stuffing his face into the pillow. He lay there still and limp as the noodle he was. He squirmed around, and turned back to face her, his cold nose nuzzling her cheek. "Alright, you wore me down. What is it, Ire?" he pulled back, but her eyes wouldn't meet his gaze. A devilish smile crept across Barry's face. "Awwww Is little Iris still scared of the dark?" he teased, curling around her, his face in her neck. "It's okay." a kiss. "I'll--" another kiss. "Protect you."

"Hey," she drawled, "that's not fair--- I wasn't scared of the dark, I was scared of what was in the dark."

"Oh, I remember." His voice pitched "'Barry, can I sleep in your room?' 'Barry will you stay in the living room and watch Chamber of Secrets with me at 1:00am' I could probably recite the whole thing in parseltongue by now."

She sucked her teeth in accusation, "Like you ever made it past the quidditch game."

"Details," he mumbled.

"No, no--- wait that's not what I was gonna say." _Focus Iris_ , she told herself. Focus on the question not Barry biting and licking her ear. His wandering hands.

"I'm listening," he said in a low voice.

"Are you, though?" She shoved him off of her. She needed to sit up to do this.

"Yes." His body language mirrored hers now. She scooted over and put her back up against the wall, her legs laying over her best friend's in a kind of fleshy, cross-stitch.

She brought her hand to his the scar just under his hairline, smoothed his full head of brown hair back with the nails. She traced his jaw with the cup of her hand delicately. His eyes went big and misty when she did so, the firm line of his mouth curving. "What's the matter?"

Iris studied her hands in her lap with a furrowed brow and in a small voice asked, "Have you told me everything?"

"About what?"

"About everything."

Barry head tilted to one side. He wasn't looking at her. "Iris,"

"Barry, I know you. I know you like the back of my hand. If you say can't tell me, I'll believe you, and I'll let it go, and I'll love what I get. I want the truth, please. We can keep secrets, but we can't lie to each other."

Barry thought hard, and said "Okay."

"So, have you told me everything?" she asked, her voice resigned.

Barry shook his head, tight-lipped.

"Oh."

"But I've told you every thing that I think I can afford to tell."

"Now, what the hell does that mean?"

"I've been keeping secrets, and I can't tell you the truth, not all of it, anyway."

"That's a diplomatic answer," she scoffed.

"You _asked_. I don't like lying to you. I want so badly to tell you everything, but I can't. It's not safe."

"You won't change your mind?"

"It's not my choice to make yet."

"But when it is?"

"Iris," he started.

"Please, please, Barry. I just want to know that it's not a burden that you're carrying on your own. I want to know that you're safe."

Her pleas were met with Barry's silence, his wide eyes focused on the point of her chin.

" _Are_ you safe?"

His bare chest rose and fell, the hand that hand been gripping hers tight unraveled and slunk away, back to his side. "I will be. Okay?"

"Okay," she nodded. 

 /

 

It's some weeks later. And in those weeks the loving pair went from good to bad to worse. Barry's hands are shaking, his eyes hooded and tired. Iris' hands are wrapped around her Jitters mug, trying absorb some of the heat.

He's cupping his hands over his face, wiping his eyes and whispering shamefully, "I can't."

Her heart is sinking, stomach churning something terrible. She reaches out, but he slips from her grasp, "Barry, no."

"I'm so sorry." 

"Please, don't do this. Please don't leave me. We just started." Her voice is trembling

"I can't stay." And he's turning around and leaving. The noon sun high and mighty.

"Wait," Iris pleads. "I love you, sweetie." Her voice is hoarse and desperate, hot spilling down her face. She slides her hands around his neck and forces kisses on his cheeks that he can't pull away from. They squeeze the life from each other.

 It's messy and shameless in this public place. People too polite to stare outright, watch from the corners of their eyes.

And she's whispering " _Don't leave me. Don't leave me. Please don't leave me._ "

Her tears spill down his shirt collar and catch on his neck.

He shrugs her off, and leaves too quick for her to catch him.

/

 

After they split, Iris took a job in Star City, apparently a very powerful figure called in a favor and got Iris a job at the news station.

Barry had asked Oliver to pull some strings to get Iris the job offer. To pull her in another direction, but also to have someone looking out for Iris.

"How is she?" Barry asked.

Joe cut him with a look of suspicion. Part of him was still angry at Barry for breaking his daughter's heart. There was another part of Joe that was grateful, so grateful that Barry put her aside. Though they were both still very much in love with one another, this way Iris was out of harm's way, safe.

Or so he thought.

She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just chance. Only chance. 

The Arrow had been tracking a well-armed militia right in the middle of Starling City. Militants, anarchists. They had started small, but had been growing rapidly in the past year. Vigilante just gets vigilante justice right back. Their modus operandi were explosives. Two bombings in the last month, twelve in all. He needed help, so he called in a favor from a rookie. 

All of the news outlets were covering a demonstration calling for peace in Starling City in the wake of fear and tragedy. Oliver and Barry hung back, over looking the whole thing from the rooftops. They had reason to believe that the anarchists, calling themselves R.A.P.T.U.R.E "Barry, Oliver," Felicity said into the microphones in their ears. "She-um, she's there."

"Who?" they said in unison.

But Barry saw in the crowd, Iris' face, surrounded by bright lights and cameras. She was beautiful, focused. And then-

A cloud of smoke swallowed her up, and things slowed down for Barry as he glided through the crowd.

He retrieved her from the crowd, she was lying face down in the rubble. He picked her up, and ran her out of harms way, and out of the eyes of the cameras and spectators. He cradled her head, for her hair was soaked through. Blood.

In moments like these, when everything was fast to him, it felt like lifetimes, lifetimes waiting for her. for a sign that she was okay, alive. He snatched the mask off of his face. "Oh, baby, _Iris_. C'mon, look at me, look at me please. Open your eyes, c'mon," he said in an agitated whisper.

He was crying. He didn't mean to. Oliver called him a rookie for a reason. He could never keep his heart out of things. Not with her. Why else was she here? Chance? No _chance_ about it. Iris was here, potentially dying, potentially dead, because Barry loved her, but he couldn't protect her. He couldn't protect anyone.

He willed her to come through. He just couldn't lose another, he could be rendered helpless again. 

Iris' eyes fluttered open. A bright smile crept across his mouth. She reached up and grazed his faint scar with her thumb, "I knew it."

"I know, sweetie. You're so smart," he smiled. He wrapped her up in his arms, tears wetting her hair. "Let's get you to a hospital." His arms flexed as they constricted around her.

"You go," she said, standing up again, on wobbly knees. She wrung his mask in her hands and pulled him down for a sweet kiss of encouragement. She maneuvered the mask back over his face. Iris then rushed out before a cab like the city kid that she was as it pulled up to meet her, one hand on her bleeding temple.

Iris slid inside. The cabbie, a chubby bearded man took one brief look at the Flash before Barry rushed away. His jaw dropped and he ripped his flip phone from his pocket. He was getting riled up. "Yo, lady. Do you know who that was? Do you _know_   who that was?" he asked, his raspy voice filling the entire car. He was more than likely texting everyone he knew. "That was---"

"The Flash, yeah. Could you take me to Starling City General Hospital, please?"

/ 

So in one night, Barry Allen broke all three of his rules. It was worth it.


End file.
